In 2018, Bestinet faced allegations of benefiting RM185 million from Nepali workers seeking employment in Malaysia. The Malaysian government suspended its operations but later cleared it of wrongdoing. In May 2023, several government officials from the Human Resource Ministry were arrested by the MACC in connection with a corruption investigation involving the recruitment of migrant workers from Bangladesh. Bestinet was later raided, and its executives, including shareholder Mr. Mohamed Amin, were questioned.
The MACC probe into the corruption allegations involving Bestinet and the Human Resource Ministry officials has not yielded any results yet. In response, the Anwar administration transferred the governance of the migrant worker procurement ecosystem from the Human Resource Ministry to the Home Affairs Minister Saifuddin. Mr. Mohamed Amin, who is a former Bangladesh national with Malaysian citizenship, reportedly has close ties with top civil servants and politicians, including Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
Under the previous Najib administration, Bestinet secured the concession to operate its FWCMS platform during Mr. Ahmad Zahid’s tenure as Home Minister. However, the company’s relations with the current Home Ministry led by Mr. Saifuddin have been strained. Mr. Saifuddin expressed dissatisfaction with the current migrant labour recruitment system during a visit to Bangladesh and acknowledged the need to eliminate graft from the process.
Malaysia’s foreign labour recruitment system has been plagued by unscrupulous agents and labor brokers collaborating with counterparts in countries providing the manpower. In 2013, the Najib Razak government awarded Bestinet a contract to assist the Home Affairs and Human Resource ministries in the recruitment of foreign labour for Malaysian companies through the FWCMS platform. However, the platform did not address mismanagement issues, resulting in exploitation of foreign labour applicants by various players in both the host and exporting countries.
The Bangladeshi Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA), which has more than 1,500 members, is negotiating with Malaysia to revamp the recruitment process. Only 100 agencies with ties to Bestinet and accreditation from the Malaysian government have a dominant position in recruiting workers to Malaysia. The government appears to be looking to address issues of corruption and inefficiency in the foreign labor recruitment system by revamping the process and involving more stakeholders to bring order and transparency to the sector. The ongoing investigations and changes in governance indicate a shift towards cleaning up the recruitment process and eliminating malpractices to protect the rights of migrant workers.
